What's new with Open Opportunities

Changes made November 4, 2019

Enhancements

• Enhanced reporting and metrics.
  • Created new report for Department of State administrators to view data based on the internship cycle.
  • Updated reports with more relevant data and filtering options for administrators.
• Added a new feature for adminstrators and help desk to view a user’s profile, including the opportunities or internships a user has created or applied to.
• Added a new ‘delete’ feature so a user can delete a draft opportunity from their dashboard landing page.

Changes made October 21, 2019

Enhancements

• Added new sorting and filtering options to the administrator dashboard to help administrators find user and opportunity or internship information.
• Added a “Not completed” status for internship applications. A user will see the “Not completed” status if their application was in progress, but they did not submit it before the cycle closed.

Changes made October 7, 2019

Enhancements

• Updated the sitewide, agency and community administrator dashboards to include the following metrics data (for a select period of time):
  • Key contributors
  • Number of opportunities created
  • Number of opportunities closed
  • Number of applicants
• Added new functionality so contractors can sign into Open Opportunities and create opportunities on behalf of their federal leads.
• Updated the visual display of the administrator dashboards to use icons for federal employees, students, or contractors.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved issues with administrator dashboard filters not working correctly.
• Fixed an issue where Save for later was submitting opportunities.

Changes made July 15, 2019

Enhancements

Made major enhancements to the People search including:

• Improved People search performance and relevance.
• Added the ability to search for people by skills (using the skills saved in their profile).
• Added keyword search to search people by name, job title, skill, career field and agency.
• Added autocomplete to the location search.
• Added a new user interface with improved visibility of key profile information.
• Added pagination to search results making it easier to sort through results.
• Updated the user interface to be consistent with USAJOBS.
• Improved navigation for system, agency and community administrators.
• Updated the profile to include the Open Opportunities email address if no official federal government email address has been provided.
• Added a feature to change the community for an opportunity/internship.
• Added new application status help content for applicants and interns.
• Added new internship status help content for administrators and opportunity creators.

Bug Fixes

We fixed:

• A casing issue in emails that affected signing into the site.
• A profile issue where skills were not saving to the profile.

Changes made June 19, 2019

We made the following changes:

Enhancements

• Launched two-factor authentication using login.gov – now you can securely sign into USAJOBS and Open Opportunities using one login.gov account
• Updated our sign in process to navigate users to the right place if they’re missing information in their profile, such as hiring path, federal email address or agency information
• Created one profile for both USAJOBS and Open Opportunities—Open Opportunities users can now link their USAJOBS and Open Opportunities profile so they have only one profile to keep up to date.
• Released new functionality for the U.S. Department of State Student Internship Program (Unpaid)
  • Launched a new online application process so students can apply to unpaid internship opportunities on Open Opportunities. Students can:
    • Search for internships using new search features.
    • Review internships and save them as a favorite.
    • View their status and saved internships on the student landing page.
  • Added functionality so unpaid internship hiring managers and administrators can manage the application process. They can:
    • Post unpaid internship opportunities.
    • Create and edit new hiring cycle periods.
  • Created new emails to communicate with hiring managers, administrators, and students of status, activity and next steps.
• Enhanced our community features, so community administrators can edit community information.

Changes made January 11, 2019

We made the following changes:

Enhancements

• Added the ability to create and manage communities—a community is a group of users who share a common goal or interest.
  • Opportunity creators can post opportunities to a specific community.
  • Added a community administrator role–community administrators will get an email when there are opportunities ready for them to review and approve.
  • Community administrators can add members to a community—members will get an email when they’re added to a community.
• Added a step to the Create an opportunity process to select a target audience—you can post an opportunity to a specific audience (community, agency, all Federal Employees, etc.)
• Imported data from USAJOBS to standardize our information.
• Made some back-end changes to support future search improvements.

Bug fixes

We fixed:

• Navigation disappearing on some pages.
• An incorrect link in the “draft opportunity created” email.

Changes made November 16, 2018

We made the following changes:

Enhancements

• Enhanced the administration dashboard.
• Updated the profile page so you can easily upload, update or remove your profile picture.
• Added a section to the profile page to display your skills and added a way to edit your skill list.
• Created a new user home page that highlights:
  • Current and past opportunities you’ve participated in.
  • Opportunities you’ve created.
  • What’s new announcement.
  • Latest achievements.
  • Suggested searches based on your profile, career field, skills, and location.
  • Networking recommendations with people based on your job title and agency.
• Improved security and other technical enhancements to increase the stability and efficiency of the site.

Changes made June 29, 2018

We made the following changes:

Enhancements

• Updated the account registration process to only allow a federal email address.
• Added total number of opportunities to the top of the search results page.
• Updated the search results page to only display 10 opportunities per page.
• Incorporated keyword search features.
• Separated and relabeled skills and interests on the profile page.
• Added a new email to let opportunity creators know when someone has applied to their opportunity.
• Enhanced administrative functions.
• Enhanced the site navigation.
• Added a character limit of 35 for any new skills entered on an opportunity.
• Added a help feature to the ‘create an opportunity’ process to explain the ‘continuing accepting applicants’ toggle.

Bug fixes

We fixed:

• Various mobile and desktop display issues.
• Error handing on the Create account and Create opportunity pages.
• Issues with photo upload page refresh on the Profile page.
• An issue with deleting comments from opportunities for some users.
• The location table—it no longer allows duplicate locations to be added and displayed.
• The profile link for an applicant or participant—it’s now clickable by the opportunity creator.
• The “duplicate opportunity” feature—it now copies all fields on the opportunity over.

Changes made May 18, 2018

We made the following changes:

Enhancements

• Updated the design and added new content on the landing page after you sign in.
• Added several filters to help narrow your search—you can now search opportunities by status, skill, career field, series, time commitment, and location.
• Added a “career field” drop down to the profile and create an opportunity sections—you can now post and search for opportunities by career fields.
• Launched the Acquisition Career portal which focuses on opportunities for the Acquisition career field.
• Updated our system notification emails to increase clarity.
• Updated how opportunities are displayed and listed on the search page to make them easier to understand.
• Added a “preview” step to the opportunity creation and editing process.

Bug fixes

We fixed:

• The password reset form to only submit a single request.
• Various mobile display issues.
• Various bugs to improve system performance.

Changes made March 9, 2018

We made the following changes:

New design

We updated the site to use the USAJOBS design system. This includes updates to the color, typography, button style, layout and more.

Enhancements

We added:

• The ability to assign participants to an opportunity, while keeping the opportunity open.
• Labels to indicate where the opportunity is in the process–whether it’s assigning, in progress or completed.
• The ability to mark participants with ‘task completed’.
• An automatic notification to the opportunity creator when a new comment is added to an opportunity.
• An option to cancel an opportunity.
• An agency admin role.
• A way to clearly identify which applicants have been assigned to an opportunity.
• An easy way to mark the entire opportunity as complete.

Bug fixes

We fixed:

• The image displays in IE and Edge.
• The email field for signing in—it’s no longer case sensitive.

Security updates

• We’re now using a non-persistent cookie.
• Added an inactive session termination
• Limited the visibility of unauthenticated users.
• Fixed the password confirmation on password reset.